Check Engine Light during vacation, please help

DrumAce · Sep 28, 2024

Hi guys,
Today I was driving for a few hours on a way to a family vacation and the check engine light came on all of a sudden after using the gear to reduce the speed.
The vehicle has around 20K kilometres on mileage and the oil was changed a few months ago and at about 60%. I also use premium fuel only.
Because I’m very far away from home I want to know if I should get the car in the garage (and give up on the vacation) or wait until I’m back home.

Jeppo · Sep 28, 2024

Down here, most auto parts stores will connect and read the codes without charge. Is that a possibility?

Cdubya · Sep 28, 2024

Anything that brings up the CEL should be looked at. There are plenty of minor faults that don't trigger a CEL, only a code stored. Is it a persistent CEL engine symbol light or are you talking about a dash warning saying one of the drivetrain features is disabled (which happens more commonly).

DrumAce · Sep 28, 2024

The light is persistent, I turned on the engine in the morning and no change. No messages appeared on the dash. The ford app that’s connected to the car says:
Service Engine Soon Warning
The Engine system has detected a fault.

UNBROKEN · Sep 28, 2024

If the car is running fine it could be as simple as the purge valve or any number of other things that won’t stop your trip. If it’s running like shit that’s a different story. Hit a parts store so they can scan it and find out what it is…if it’s minor finish your trip and take care of it when you get home.

DrumAce · Oct 2, 2024

Apologies for the late update, wasn’t feeling well for the last few days.
Anyway, while being away on that weekend I had to bring the car to the only open car service shop (Canadian Tire) as all Ford service centers were closed.
They ran an hour long diagnostic and couldn’t find anything that could explain that warning aside from some old error codes and they reset them all (they gave me a print of everything that was there). They also said the CAL wasn’t on when they brought the car into the garage which is weird.
The only thing that was mentioned in the report is a warning about a leak in the passenger shock, something I plan to have it checked along with another diagnostic in a Ford service center next week.
All that time the car was driving just fine but one thing I did notice is that the fuel lid was semi-open a couple of times in the last few days (no idea how, maybe the strong winds on the road). Perhaps that has something to do with the warning.

cheetoduster · Oct 2, 2024

DrumAce said:

Apologies for the late update, wasn’t feeling well for the last few days.
Anyway, while being away on that weekend I had to bring the car to the only open car service shop (Canadian Tire) as all Ford service centers were closed.
They ran an hour long diagnostic and couldn’t find anything that could explain that warning aside from some old error codes and they reset them all (they gave me a print of everything that was there). They also said the CAL wasn’t on when they brought the car into the garage which is weird.
The only thing that was mentioned in the report is a warning about a leak in the passenger shock, something I plan to have it checked along with another diagnostic in a Ford service center next week.
All that time the car was driving just fine but one thing I did notice is that the fuel lid was semi-open a couple of times in the last few days (no idea how, maybe the strong winds on the road). Perhaps that has something to do with the warning.

An open fuel door will cause an evap leak fault and a CEL.

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Check Engine Light during vacation, please help

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